Post-structuralism, Complexity and Poetics.

Abstract

Post-structuralism and complexity are plural and diverse modes of thought that share a common subscription to the â��anteriority of radical relationalityâ��. They nonetheless subscribe to a different ethic of life because they address the anteriority of radical relationality in different ways. Complexity remains strategic in its bid to become a power-knowledge of the laws of becoming. It derives that strategic ethic from its scientific interest in the implicate order of non-linearity that is said to subvert Newtonian science. Post-structuralism is poetic. It derives its poetic ethic from Heidegger and from the re-working of orphic and tragic sensibilities to radical relationality with the radically non-relational. Observing that all poetry is complexity avant la lettre, the paper illustrates these points with the Odyssey and concludes that while complexity is ultimately concerned with fitness, post-structuralism is pre-occupied with justice.